Thursday, May 24, 2007

Pests

Today we received what has to be the most fuckwitted ticket we've ever received. EVAR. It puts all the screenshot people to shame. It's a special kind of fuckwittery which is in a class by itself. And it's mine.

I have experienced something worse than the fuckwits who sully my workplace, waste my bits, force me to wear out keyboard after keyboard and who have caused me to create a dent in my dense laminate desk in front of the keyboard. If you've read the Bee Guy's site, you know that the accidental importation of a pest can be absolutely devastating. In their natural habitat they can be controlled but in a new environment they can wreak havoc. So it is with Varroa in North America, so it is with cane toads in Australia, so it is with Guidos in Germany. Glub help us, they've arrived.

The ride to Regensburg is normally a fairly pleasant 90 minutes across the middle Bavarian hills. Due to the number of passengers, Deutsche Bahn normally uses double-decker carriages but on the weekends, it's usually the old-style cars. The new seats are impossible to lie across and generally uncomfortable thanks to their brilliant ergonomic design. It's loud in the area between where the carriages join, and there you might find a toilet.

In the carriage behind me sat the three children, the oldest maybe 16, the youngest still waiting for his growth spurt. I recognised the look immediately, chuckled, shook my head and went back to the sudoku puzzle. You see, in Germany everyone tries to find some niche, some way of standing out and drawing attention. Within a month of the German release of Boogie Nights there was some blonde ditz sporting rollerblades, calling herself "roller girl" and making the talk show rounds. No, she didn't do porn films nor would she even though so many celebrities here have done so to get their fame. Gina Wild, Dolly Buster, and a whole host of others whose names don't mean shit outside this here Reich.

If it's in any way different -- a look, a style, an activity -- as sure as shit stinks some Germans will do it. The Guido look appealed to these little twits. Fine. Hell, the guidos in NYC get laid (if they can get it up after all that coke) so maybe it'll work here. Plus it's a new look: baggy, flappy clothes, custom-ripped stuff, "bling", shaved eyebrows, kid stuff.

And had the trio just copied the look it would've been fine. But they didn't just copy the look. They had to be authentic, and that means "annoying". They'd traipse like little girls together to the bathroom which honestly is so small that obese passengers can't get in at all, so one would have to wait outside. Then they'd head back to their seats. To get between points A and B they'd open the door by me AND WE WOULD ALL BE DEAFENED UNTIL IT CLOSED and then open the door at the other end of the carriage SO THAT IT GOT EVEN LOUDER and after a couple minutes, they'd do this in reverse.

These girls needed to go back to the bathroom every 10 minutes. After a few times one of them decided what he really needed to do while waiting for the other two was to stand in the doorway and block the door SO THAT IT STAYED REALLY LOUD. As they walked back to their seats, the stench of cheap cologne wafted through the carriage. They were dripping in cologne, hair gel and eyebrow wax. That shit's like this decade's jheri curl for whitey.

When they held the door open again I asked the little douchebag to let it close but he couldn't hear me. So I tapped him on the shoulder and repeated my request, even the "please". The kid screamed something at me but then moved away. A minute later as he came back through with his friends, the oldest one started shouting at me. Along with the shouting came the threats of physical violence and he was posturing real pretty.

My first instinct is to remove the threat. I was in a confined space, had one shitball to my side and another in front. What I'd have to do would be a quick jab to my left followed by a reach to pull the biggest one into a sleeper hold. But this is Germany. Even if the kid hits me first I can't hit him back unless my life is in danger. You can go to jail defending yourself.

The stupid look, the eyebrow wax, the cologne, the pugilistic attitude, the irresponsibility, the overall senselessness has come to Germany, and unlike NYC we're ill-equipped to deal with it. A preemptive strike would've changed their attitudes quickly. Were I in the US I could've done so in most states having been threatened, especially since a controlling hold isn't seen in the same way punching a guy's lights out is. We also have this air of social acceptance. I'm all for laissez faire as long as the fuckers aren't causing me any problems. But here you're supposed to be "tolerant"; you must show respect even for those who themselves show none.

With luck this'll die out quickly and the little shits will be mocked. That's actually quite likely. But since Guidos come from NYC and hang out in clubs and, as I mentioned before, seem to get some play, it may grow, and if it does, I'll be looking for a new place to live. Norway perhaps; the Finnish language is bloody difficult to learn.

And the other idiots?

Our Customer has built an external website with $YourBigApp through which they want to sell their products – mostly $SpecialtyProduct to their customers. Unfortunately, their built-with-$YourBigApp website seems to return very low ranks by external web engines and web crawlers like the ones from google. If a customer in Belgium types in the keyword $SpezielProdukt" (Dutch for $SpecialtyProduct), it is difficult to find the customer website back in the result list. Obviously, if the customer adds $CustomerName to the keyword list, this is OK, but then the customer would be knowing that $Customer is actually selling $SpecialtyProduct (which they mostly do not).

Because of the fact that their built-with-$YourBigApp website scores bad with web engines in promoting and selling their products, the customer starts questionning whether $YourBigApp was the correct product to actually build their customer facing website with. This issue is becoming very political

Consequently, we need to give them our best possible advice of what advice, methods, tips, tricks are to improve the ranking of their built-with-$YourBigApp website by web engines and web crawlers. This issue is becoming very urgent.

Thanks a lot in advance!

My answer:

Dear Fuckwit,

If you don't know how to bake a cake do you blame Pillsbury for their shitty flour?

This ticket has to convince Internal Apps Development to implement my Root Cause: 17-Fuckwit. I don't know what else to close this out with. "7-Not an issue"? "12-No research"? I have to pick something and for the life of me I have no idea which root cause to choose. Only a 17 fits.

In compliance with $MegaCorp's general policies as well as my desire to
continue living under a roof and not the sky or a bus shelter, I add this:

DISCLAIMER:The views expressed on this blog are my own and
do not necessarily reflect the views of $MegaCorp, even if every
single one of my cow-orkers who has discovered this blog agrees with me
and would also like to see the implementation of Root Cause: 17-Fuckwit.